


Ash-Stained Lungs and Bloody Knuckles

by roamer_of_the_dusty_shelves



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: there is? description of violence? dead children? so heads up for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roamer_of_the_dusty_shelves/pseuds/roamer_of_the_dusty_shelves
Summary: The phoenix burns, and the ashes must wait to see what they will birth.





	Ash-Stained Lungs and Bloody Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

> "A man from hell is not afraid of hot ashes." -Dorothy Gilman

Padmé Amidala gives birth, screaming and sobbing and gasping for air, her sweat-slicked hands scrabbling at the smooth antiseptic table, pain flooding through her like a forest fire, like a tsunami, like a rending and tearing and skillful serrated paring away from the bone, away from the very center of herself-and the babies are delivered safely, Luke and Leia, red-faced and splotchy and squalling, and Obi-Wan hovers over her, and the Med-Droids are humming away in the corner, and Bail and Yoda are somewhere nearby, she knows, she can feel them, and everything is so sane and normal and still-

and the pain is still screaming through her, the knife slicing through her flesh and muscle and bone and cutting out her heart and roasting it whole, and it is then she knows that it is a lightsaber, and that it is her husband's, and that he is Anakin Skywalker no longer but someone else, someone dark and twisted and malformed by rage

_(and more than rage, she thinks, and smells cooked flesh and sizzling in her nostrils)_

and fear. More than anything, his fear shapes him, even now, stretches him and molds him and breaks him and builds him back up like a ghastly parody of what he was before. This, in a moment, in less than a moment, she knows. And as she knows this, she also knows that she is dying.

She can feel it, feel her life and her will shudder like a cowed beast, and she knows that she will soon be dead. Obi-Wan knows this too, she can tell-by the way he doesn't look directly into her eyes, by the way his smile is supposed to be reassuring but looks more like a grimace, like a death march, like a ragged banner that cannot withstand the cruel winds for another moment. She can feel herself slipping away, can feel her essence like so much _~~sand~~ ~~water~~ ~~ash~~ _ between her scarred and gaunt fingers, and for a blissful moment, she feels nothing but relief. How can she wish anything but death, after what she has seen? What she she witnessed, what she has carried in her like poison ever since Obi-Wan came into her quarters and she saw his face and _knew_

Luke cries, suddenly, wails, his pudgy fists grasping for an embrace that has not been offered, and suddenly Padmé feels sick, feels like slapping herself for such foolishness and insolence. how can she think of dying? how can she think of giving up, drifting off, when so much has happened, when there is so much damage and no one to fix it? how can she think of abandoning her people, of simply leaving the many who need help, the many who have fallen, the many

_children, dead and smoking like so much meat, carcasses of bright young learning padawans, of innocence, of CHILDREN-_

she swallows the wave of nausea and revulsion, and feels her chest shudder with the effort. she is weak, and falling farther and farther away from the light of the hospital room and the neon-bright cries of her children, and she must do something, and quickly, or it will be too late.

she has a choice. she knows this. she hangs over an endless precipice, that is warm and dark and inviting because it will envelop her and keep her safe and numb and she will never have to think of any of it again, the children or the dark whispers of the darkest parts of the Force or the feel of death and the sting of betrayal at her throat

 _but death is nothing but another way to suffer_ , she thinks, remembering the ghosts that the Jedi pretend not to see or hear or dream about in the coldest hours of the night, _and I know now that I am closer to the Force than i have any wish to be._

and on the other...a different and closer form of suffering. pain. awareness and responsibility and one day, a meeting, something at the edge of her ability to comprehend, a shadowy, formless _something_ and her, glowing blades and the smell of sulfur and an ultimatum that cuts what is left of her heart from her. a crueler suffering, because it is so close and so immediate and she can never run from it. but perhaps easier, because she can ( _and will_ ) have to do something about it, and will not be forced to watch helplessly, a ghost of a player that never quite managed to make the right move.

so. now, this moment, now is the time, and she claws a breath into her lungs and decides if it will be her last.

_in another world, it is, and she uses it as best as she knows how-she looks into Obi-Wan's eyes, blue and endless and full of misery, and she tries to put some hope back into them, and then she stills, stills forever, and flowers are wound into her hair and she is mourned by many, and a hollow cry rings out weakly into the Force from behind a black mask. and things go on as they are meant to, and the Force wends its way onwards._

_this is not that world._

Padmé Amidala holds the air of a new world in her lungs. it is a sick world, a burning world, one filled with ash and weeping and a new darkness and a broken government and loss and hate and fear. For a moment-less than a moment-she lets herself mourn for the old world, the dead world, the Old Republic and the old life she held and the memory of loving and being loved and the lack of shadows and screams and death.

And then she breathes out.

She sits up.

She reaches out for her children.

She looks into their eyes, new and somehow old at the same time, and their crying faces and their fat cheeks and their innocence. She clutches them close. This is her gift. This is the one thing she receives-the one piece of her old life that she may keep, as a reminder. As a warning.

As a beacon of hope, as a way out, as a new start for her and Obi-Wan and Naboo and all the children, everywhere, born into a world on fire and raised in its ashes.

She will not let them down. Not again. Not ever again. She will never let another innocent life pay for the sins of her-

of _him_.

This is her vow. To protect. To rebuild. To rise, like a phoenix, and use the ashes to build something better than what came before.

Or die trying.

She turns to the stunned and pale and mourning Obi-Wan, and says, "We have work to do."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked it! I honestly don't know everything about Star Wars, so I hope this is accurate! Let me know if it isn't. Also I cannot tell if I will continue this? We Will See™.   
> I just love Padmé so much and She Deserved Better, so I thought I'd write that! Inspiration is weird.   
> Let me know what you think!!!!


End file.
